Heritabilities and heterosis of some economic traits in swine

In cooperation with the Regional Swine Breeding Laboratory, A.H.R.D., A.R.S., U.S. Department of Agriculture.Digitized 2007 AES.Includes bibliographical references (pages 26-27)

Genome Editing and the Jurisprudence of Scientific Empiricism

Humankind has reached, in tow by the hand of a scientific breakthrough called CRISPR, the Rubicon of precise genetic manipulation first envisioned over fifty years ago. Despite CRISPR\u27s renown in science and its power to transform the world, it remains virtually unaddressed in legal scholarship. In the absence of on-point law, the scientific community has attempted to reach some consensus to preempt antagonistic regulation and prescribe subjective standards of use under the guise of a priori scientific empiricism. Significant and complex legal issues concerning this technology are emerging, and the void in legal scholarship is no longer tolerable. This Article shrinks the scholarly gap, and it is the first to introduce CRISPR to legal literature. By providing a resource for jurists, scholars, and practitioners, it challenges conventional notions concerning the false dichotomy frequently associated with mutually exclusive normative roles for science and law. The Article makes two independent contributions. First, it lays a robust and comprehensive epistemic foundation of genome editing suitable for legal audiences. This element is descriptive, but essential because a detailed and coherent understanding of the nuts and bolts of the science is requisite for a discussion of law and policy. Second, it advocates for a jurisprudence of scientific empiricism, namely, a normative legal framework that consolidates empiricism and technological--e.g., genome editing--applications into a uniform doctrinal structure unencumbered by common substantive impediments to constructive debate. These impediments consist of impractical and often sensationalist claims about issues raised by technological advances and are collectively characterized as deceptive simplicity. The proposed paradigm, which lays a blueprint for the legal community to combat the deleterious effects of scientific illiteracy, flows from the Supreme Court\u27s recent decision in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics and is broadly adaptable to addressing questions of science in law. Applying this framework, the Article reconsiders Buck v. Belland argues that, contrary to long-held views, Buck is not a direct product of false science, but of unbridled deceptive simplicity. Lastly, the Article sets the stage for a series of forthcoming works that will analyze genome editing from regulatory, constitutional, international, egalitarian, ethical, and policy standpoints, which highlight pivotal synergistic roles for law, science, and public policy in the development of this remarkable nascent biotechnology

Recent range expansion of an intermediate host for animal schistosome parasites in the Indo-Australian Archipelago: phylogeography of the freshwater gastropod Indoplanorbis exustus in South and Southeast Asia

Background: The planorbid snail Indoplanorbis exustus is the sole intermediate host for the Schistosoma indicum species group, trematode parasites responsible for cattle schistosomiasis and human cercarial dermatitis. This freshwater snail is widely distributed in Southern Asia, ranging from Iran to China eastwards including India and from the southeastern Himalayas to Southeast Asia southwards. The veterinary and medical importance of this snail explains the interest in understanding its geographical distribution patterns and evolutionary history. In this study, we used a large and comprehensive sampling throughout Indo-Malaya, including specimens from South India and Indonesia, areas that have been formerly less studied. Results: The phylogenetic inference revealed five highly divergent clades (genetic distances among clades: 4.4–13.9%) that are morphologically indistinguishable, supporting the assumption that this presumed nominal species may represent a cryptic species complex. The species group may have originated in the humid subtropical plains of Nepal or in southern adjacent regions in the Early Miocene. The major cladogenetic events leading to the fives clades occurred successively from the Early Miocene to the Early Pleistocene, coinciding with major periods of monsoonal intensification associated with major regional paleogeographic events in the Miocene and repeated climate changes due to the Plio-Pleistocene climatic oscillations. Our coverage of the Indo-Australian Archipelago (IAA) highlights the presence of a single clade there. Contrary to expectations, an AMOVA did not reveal any population genetic structure among islands or along a widely recognised zoogeographical regional barrier, suggesting a recent colonisation independent of natural biogeographical constraints. Neutrality tests and mismatch distributions suggested a sudden demographic and spatial population expansion that could have occurred naturally in the Pleistocene or may possibly result of a modern colonisation triggered by anthropogenic activities. Conclusions: Even though Indoplanorbis is the main focus of this study, our findings may also have important implications for fully understanding its role in hosting digenetic trematodes. The existence of a cryptic species complex, the historical phylogeographical patterns and the recent range expansion in the IAA provide meaningful insights to the understanding and monitoring of the parasites potential spread. It brings a substantial contribution to veterinary and public health issues

Pushing Drugs: Genomics and Genetics, the Pharmaceutical Industry, and the Law of Negligence

This article presents a piece of a larger, ongoing project on the phenomenon of market-driven manufacturing (MDM) and how tort law should address it. In contrast to the larger project, this article provides a relatively brief overview of the general phenomenon of MDM, but zeros in on how pharmaceutical manufacturers specifically practice MDM. MDM is a well-documented, much practiced activity, although American courts do not recognize MDM as a discrete category of conduct. The basic idea of MDM is that marketing considerations should continuously control every aspect and stage of a product\u27s lifecycle. When a company engages in MDM, it completely inverts the conception of product design, development, and dissemination that seems natural to those unfamiliar with modern producer practices

Sex-related differences in chromatic sensitivity

Generally women are believed to be more discriminating than men in the use of colour names and this is often taken to imply superior colour vision. However, if both X-chromosome linked colour deficient males (~8%) and females (<1%) as well as heterozygote female carriers (~15%) are excluded from comparisons, then differences between men and women in red-green colour discrimination have been reported as not being significant (e.g., Pickford, 1944; Hood et al., 2006). We re-examined this question by assessing the performance of 150 males and 150 females on the Colour Assessment and Diagnosis (CAD) test (Rodriguez-Carmona, 2005). This is a sensitive test that yields small colour detection thresholds. The test employs direction-specific, moving, chromatic stimuli embedded in a background of random, dynamic, luminance contrast noise. A four-alternative, forced-choice procedure is employed to measure the subject’s thresholds for detection of colour signals in 16 directions in colour space, while ensuring that the subject cannot make use of any residual luminance contrast signals. In addition, we measured the Rayleigh anomaloscope matches in a subgroup of 111 males and 114 females. All the age-matched males (30.8 ± 9.7) and females (26.7 ± 8.8) had normal colour vision as diagnosed by a battery of conventional colour vision tests. Females with known colour deficient relatives were excluded from the study. Comparisons between the male and female groups revealed no significant differences in anomaloscope midpoints (p=0.709), but a significant difference in matching ranges (p=0.040); females on average tended to have a larger mean range (4.11) than males (3.75). Females also had significantly higher CAD thresholds than males along the red-green (p=0.0004), but not along the yellow-blue discrimination axis. The differences between males and females in red-green discrimination may be related to the heterozygosity in X-linked cone photopigment expression common among females

The Evolution of Diversity

Since the beginning of time, the pre-biological and the biological world have seen a steady increase in complexity of form and function based on a process of combination and re-combination. The current modern synthesis of evolution known as the neo-Darwinian theory emphasises population genetics and does not explain satisfactorily all other occurrences of evolutionary novelty. The authors suggest that symbiosis and hybridisation and the more obscure processes such as polyploidy, chimerism and lateral transfer are mostly overlooked and not featured sufficiently within evolutionary theory. They suggest, therefore, a revision of the existing theory including its language, to accommodate the scientific findings of recent decades

Remembrance of Lives Past: The Challenge of Addressing Epigenetic Risk in Society

Do our ancestors’ experiences from several generations ago play a role in our current health? Could a famine or a period of food abundance experienced by our grandfathers affect whether we are currently obese or likely to develop diabetes? Can being the grandchildren of those who suffered through genocide or intense racial discrimination affect levels of certain chemicals in our brains even if we are not exposed to the same social stresses? In other words, do we biologically inherit the “memories” of past generations independent of changes to our ancestors’ genetic code or DNA? Assistant Professor Fazal Khan explores how certain environmental exposures experienced by our ancestors can affect our health a couple of generations later, independent of our genetic sequence, and some implications for future tort laws